Ear buddies: A moderated mediation model of the effect of mobility on parasocial relationships with podcast hosts

The affordances of different media technologies can affect how users develop parasocial relationships with the media figures they encounter on those devices. This study examined the relationship between mobility and parasocial relationships with podcast hosts. Participants from Amazon Mechanical Turk ( n = 165) responded to a survey on a memorable podcast listening experience. The results revealed a conditional indirect effect of mobility on parasocial relationship strength through narrative transportation. Media multitasking moderated this effect. Specifically, there was a positive effect of mobility on transportation that increased incrementally at moderate and high levels of multitasking.